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Personal Identity and What Matters

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Abstract

There are two general views about the nature of what matters, i.e. about the metaphysical ground of prudential concern, the ground of the concern we have for our own future welfare. On the one hand, the identity-is-what-matters view tells us that prudential concern is grounded on one’s continuing identity over time; I am concerned with my own future welfare because it is my own future welfare. On the other hand, the identity-is-not-what-matters view tells us that prudential concern is not grounded on such continuing identity; rather, it is grounded on some continuity-relation, which only coincides with identity. In this paper, I explore a primary motivation for the latter view—viz., Parfit’s fission case—and show that there are interesting ways to resist it.